Pharmaceuticals and healthcare sector have deployed a safe hiring strategy despite positive business outlook. The Employment Outlook for the quarter has moved up by 4 per cent and stands at 68 per cent. The Business Outlook Index has risen by 10 per cent to 71 index points in eight industry sectors and eight cities across India, according to the Employment Outlook Report for the period October – December 2010 by TeamLease Services Private Limited, India’s largest staffing company.

According to the report, the business outlook has increased but still companies are playing the hiring game safely.

The two indices: Business and the Employment Outlook are closely correlated, a recent trend is becoming increasingly noticeable. Over the most recent two quarters, the Employment Outlook Index is trailing the Business Outlook Index. This implies an important shift in the hiring behaviour of businesses. Employers sentiment for hiring was higher than their business sentiment, during any given quarter. With business sentiment improving consistently over 6 subsequent quarters, the employment market seems to be gradually sobering their hiring sentiment, stated the report.

According to Sangeeta Lala, VP, TeamLease Services Pvt Ltd, “We witness a shift in hiring intent; while earlier the business sentiment and hiring sentiment were moving hand in hand, this quarter shows the business sentiment improving but hiring intent lagging behind marginally. This development implies that employers are cautious while hiring and giving importance to productivity and efficiency.”

Interestingly, Tier- II cities and Tier – III towns move up a notch in the hiring intent. Metro cities continue their dominance; however, the increase in hiring in the smaller markets can assume a marginal yet overall improvement in the employment status. Finally, the hiring at the entry levels continues to be positive in comparison to mid-level positions which seem to be losing their sheen. Functionally, Engineering domain emerges as the strong and clear contender for the second most sought after position in terms of hiring intent.

“In totality, the development- city/ sector wise, business outlook and employment outlook, means a relatively better supply-demand scenario in the employment market,” she added.

Specifically to pharma and healthcare industry, the net employment outlook growth estimated is 74 index points and is 4 per cent higher over the previous quarter of July to September where it was 70 index points.

Under the new business outlook pharma healthcare is expected to record 81 index points between October to December which is 5 per cent over July to September period.

In the city sector, healthcare and pharma employment outlook has shown to be slow in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad with a 2 per cent growth in hiring and indicating stagnancy in Kolkata stated the report.